Abstract

This paper reports on an all-sky search for periodic gravitational waves from sources such as deformed isolated rapidly-spinning neutron stars. The analysis uses 840 hours of data from 66 days of the fifth LIGO science run (S5). The data was searched for quasi-monochromatic waves with frequencies f in the range from 50 Hz to 1500 Hz, with a linear frequency drift \dot{f} (measured at the solar system barycenter) in the range -f/\tau < \dot{f} < 0.1 f/\tau, for a minimum spin-down age \tau of 1000 years for signals below 400 Hz and 8000 years above 400 Hz. The main computational work of the search was distributed over approximately 100000 computers volunteered by the general public. This large computing power allowed the use of a relatively long coherent integration time of 30 hours while searching a large parameter space. This search extends Einstein@Home's previous search in LIGO S4 data to about three times better sensitivity. No statistically significant signals were found. In the 125 Hz to 225 Hz band, more than 90% of sources with dimensionless gravitational-wave strain tensor amplitude greater than 3e-24 would have been detected.

Highlights

  • Gravitational waves (GWs) are predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity, but have so far eluded direct detection

  • At a terrestrial detector, such as Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), the data analysis problem is complicated by the fact that the periodic GW signals are

  • A previous paper [10] reported on the results of the Einstein@Home search for periodic GW signals in the data from LIGO’s fourth science run (S4)

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

Gravitational waves (GWs) are predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity, but have so far eluded direct detection. To maximize the possible integration time, and achieve a more sensitive search, the computation was distributed via the volunteer computing project Einstein@Home [13] This large computing power allowed the use of a relatively long coherent integration time of 30 h, despite the large parameter space searched. This search involves coherent matched filtering in the form of the F -statistic over 30-hour-long data segments and subsequent incoherent combination of F -statistic results via a coincidence strategy.

DATA SELECTION AND PREPARATION
POST-PROCESSING
The post-processing steps
Construction of coincidence windows
Output of the post-processing
False alarm probability and detection threshold
ESTIMATED SENSITIVITY
Vetoing instrumental-noise lines
Post-processing results
COMPARISON WITH PREVIOUS SEARCHES
VIII. CONCLUSION
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